Chapter Summaries

Liu Xing bought the Qingming Festival Gift Pack before starting his first Advancement Game, which he had to complete within half a month to avoid a one-year account ban. As the game began, his Intermission Growth settlement granted him new and improved skills.

• Liu Xing received notice that he had qualified for three Advancement Games and needed to pass two within half a month.
• Liu Xing spent 100 Points on the Qingming Festival Gift Pack and obtained Qingming Season Rain, Qingming Sacrifice, and a Qingming Oiled Paper Umbrella.
• Liu Xing placed all three items in his Character Card’s carried-items slot and started his first Advancement Game.
• Liu Xing waited more than ten minutes before the game began and entered the Intermission Growth settlement page.
• Liu Xing gained First Aid skill points, English 22, and Drive 50 from his intermission activities.

Liu Xing entered the medium-difficulty Harvest Festival Advancement Game and explored Immortal Crane Temple, where he found a tentacled statue and a stele about the festival. A scream interrupted him, and he discovered a player badly injured on the temple steps beside a bloody scalpel.

• Liu Xing began the Harvest Festival scenario with improved medical, English, and driving skills.
• Liu Xing discarded his Qingming Oiled Paper Umbrella and Qingming Sacrifice but kept Ancestral Green Tea, his phone, Cthulhu's Candy, and Qingming Season Rain.
• kpcao told Liu Xing that the mission was trigger-based and gave the players twenty minutes of free time before their meeting.
• Liu Xing surveyed the festival grounds and chose to visit Immortal Crane Temple.
• Liu Xing saw a tentacled statue and approached a stele describing the Harvest Festival's origins.
• Liu Xing heard a scream and found a player bleeding on the temple steps, with a bloody scalpel nearby.

Liu Xing watched player Kite get eliminated after a prohibited scalpel caused a severe injury, then persuaded kpcao that his medical experience spared him a SAN loss. Back at Immortal Crane Temple, Liu Xing read the stele’s account of how the Harvest Festival began.

• Kite failed two Luck Checks after bringing a prohibited scalpel, was rushed to the hospital, and was eliminated from the Advancement Game.
• kpcao called for Liu Xing to make an Inspiration Check after witnessing Kite’s injury, but Liu Xing argued that his Emergency Department experience made him accustomed to gruesome sights.
• kpcao accepted Liu Xing’s explanation and let him continue without losing SAN Value.
• Liu Xing returned to Immortal Crane Temple and read that a Taoist introduced the Sulu Harvest Festival, which brought rain and fertile land to the county.

Liu Xing investigated the Harvest Festival's connection to Cthulhu, then met the other Players gathered for the Advancement Game. The group learned that Kite's Character Card, Alger, was in the hospital after Kite's bizarre attempt to escape his elimination.

• Liu Xing concluded that the stone tablet's god Sulu was Cthulhu and that the Harvest Festival ritual came from Cthulhu's dream call, though the tablet did not specify its sacrifice.
• Liu Xing met Ming Shi Xiang, Li Ming, Tian Dao, and Tina at the Harvest Festival entrance.
• Kpcao explained the Player title system, and the group reacted warily to Tina's title, Head Taker, before learning she had earned it by killing chickens during Temporary Insanity.
• Tina asked the Players to call Alger, and Liu Xing explained that Kite had been injured at the temple and sent to the hospital.
• The Players were stunned when Liu Xing described how Kite had gotten hurt.

Liu Xing and the others watched a Harvest Festival performance to identify the items needed for the festival, then planned to visit the Grape Arbor. Before they could leave, Liu Xing noticed a crying girl whom the NPCs ignored, signaling the start of the module’s Main Quest.

• Ming Shi Xiang handed out festival maps, and Liu Xing noted the Grape Arbor, bamboo groves, and Peach Trees as likely clue locations.
• Tian Dao led the group to the performance, while the injured Li Ming slowed their walk through the crowded festival grounds.
• Liu Xing and Tian Dao succeeded at their Investigation Rolls and saw peaches, grapes, and bamboo shoots on the offering table.
• Liu Xing and the others inferred that the three foods were the festival’s Clearance Items and decided to visit the Grape Arbor.
• Liu Xing spotted a little girl crying by the roadside as the surrounding NPCs ignored her.

Liu Xing and the others accepted a timed mission to reunite Minami Kotori with her mother and followed kpcao’s directions to the Children’s Lost and Found Center. Liu Xing realized that kpcao may have steered them onto a safe route that kept them from finding other useful items or clues.

• Liu Xing approached a crying girl, and kpcao announced that the Players had thirty minutes to help her find her mother.
• Minami Kotori told Tina that she had become separated from her mother while they watched a performance.
• Li Ming suggested taking Kotori to the Children’s Lost and Found Center, and kpcao revealed it was beside the Great Hall.
• Tian Dao stayed behind to escort Li Ming, while Liu Xing and the others continued with Kotori.
• Liu Xing’s group reached the Lost and Found Center, where Liu Xing suspected kpcao had guided them away from opportunities to collect useful items.

Liu Xing and his companions brought Minami Kotori to the Children's Lost and Found Center, where they met Brother Lei and heard a secret about Immortal Crane Temple’s Harvest Festival. Brother Lei’s account ended with a confirmed pattern of one mysterious child disappearance during every festival cycle.

• Liu Xing, Tina, and Ming Shi Xiang brought Minami Kotori to the Children's Lost and Found Center and asked staff to announce that she was lost.
• Brother Lei arranged the announcement and began chatting with the group while they waited.
• At Tina’s request, Brother Lei told them that a young disciple had supposedly starved to death after stealing a peach from the festival offerings decades earlier.
• Brother Lei said the Abbot had hidden the disciple’s death and claimed he had left for the provincial capital.
• Brother Lei revealed that a child mysteriously disappeared during every Harvest Festival cycle, a pattern he had confirmed in police records.

Brother Lei told Liu Xing and the others that children and relatives had vanished at Immortal Crane Temple every twelve years, leading Liu Xing to suspect a Mythical Creature was using the adults as chang ghosts. After Li Ming and Tian Dao arrived, the group realized Minami Kotori was missing and spotted her nearby.

• Tina successfully persuaded Brother Lei to share a secret from his police work.
• Brother Lei recounted how Ji Lei and his father disappeared near the Peach Trees and described similar cases that occurred every twelve years at Immortal Crane Temple.
• Liu Xing suspected the missing children's relatives had become chang ghosts serving a Mythical Creature, and he thought Minami Kotori's mother might be one.
• Li Ming and Tian Dao arrived and asked where Minami Kotori was, prompting Liu Xing and the others to realize she had disappeared.
• Liu Xing spotted Minami Kotori and called out to the group.

Liu Xing and the other Players entered the Mirror World and learned they had to escape it. Kpcao announced a major update to the Cthulhu Mythos tabletop RPG Game Hall, and Li Ming suffered temporary madness after failing his SAN Value Check.

• Liu Xing, Tina, Ming Shi Xiang, Tian Dao, and Li Ming rushed after Minami Kotori when a mirror appeared in the Peach Tree grove, but she touched it first and they lost consciousness.
• Liu Xing regained control of his body in a silent, reversed version of Immortal Crane Temple, where fog blocked the edges of the Harvest Festival grounds and Brother Lei and the other staff members were gone.
• Liu Xing realized they were in the Mirror World and worked out that the “tiger” had sent children there by turning their relatives into changgui and luring them to the mirror.
• Kpcao announced that the Players had completed the first mission phase and needed to escape the Mirror World, then explained that the Game Hall update had removed Inspiration Checks from most SAN Value Checks.
• Liu Xing, Tina, and Ming Shi Xiang lost 1 SAN Value point each, Tian Dao lost 2, and Li Ming lost 5 and gained Temporary Madness with Fear and Fog Phobia.

Li Ming entered a Temporary Madness State, so Tian Dao used a Combat Skill to knock him unconscious and requested Escape Room Time. The group decided to carry Li Ming and protect Minami Kotori as they continued exploring the Mirror World, where a Mythical Creature might be controlling her mother.

• kpcao rolled a 30-minute duration for Li Ming's Temporary Madness State, and Li Ming began to panic.
• Tian Dao knocked Li Ming unconscious with a hand chop and requested Escape Room Time.
• Tian Dao explained how Combat Skills worked in the Real Cthulhu TRPG, including how descriptions and proficiency affected success.
• Tian Dao agreed to carry Li Ming, while Liu Xing warned Tina to keep Minami Kotori close and urged the group to rescue her.
• Tian Dao asked whether Tina and Ming Shi Xiang were foreign Players, and both said they were Chinese.